Method and apparatus for providing peer based network switching

A mobile device comprising:

• a subscriber identification module (SIM) card comprising a plurality of SIM profiles where a first SIM profile enables interfacing with a first wireless network and a second SIM profile enables interfacing with second wireless network;
• a wireless transceiver operative to communicate with the first and second wireless networks;
• a peer to peer wireless transceiver;
• a controller operatively coupled to the wireless transceiver and to the peer to peer wireless transceiver, and operative to:
• measure a current network quality of the first wireless network by the mobile device;
• obtain network quality information for the second wireless network from a mobile peer device as measured by the mobile peer device when the network quality information for the second wireless network from a mobile peer device is available;
• and
• switch from the first wireless network to the second wireless network based on the obtained network quality information from the mobile peer device and based on the measured current network quality of the first wireless network by the mobile device.

A communication environment comprising:

• a mobile device;
• and
• at least one mobile peer device;
• the mobile device comprising:
• a plurality of subscriber identification module (SIM) profiles where a first SIM profile is used to communicate with a first wireless network and a second SIM profile is used to communicate with second wireless network;
• a wireless transceiver operative to communicate with the first and second wireless networks;
• a peer to peer wireless transceiver;
• a controller operatively coupled to the wireless transceiver and to the peer to peer wireless transceiver, and operative to:
• measure a current network quality of the first wireless network by the mobile device;
• obtain network quality information for the second wireless network from a mobile peer device as measured by the mobile peer device when the network quality information for the second wireless network from a mobile peer device is available;
• and
• switch from the first wireless network to the second wireless network based on the obtained network quality information from the mobile peer device and based on the measured current network quality of the first wireless network by the mobile device;
• the mobile peer device operative to produce network quality information for the second network by measuring the network quality of the second network in response to a network quality measurement request from the mobile device.